This is an amended version of a review which will appear in Aslib Journal of Information Management. Luciano Floridi is well-known as the leading active philosopher with a strong interest in information, and his latest book extends his contributions into the area of information ethics (hereafter, as in the book, IE). IE became recognised as… Continue reading Floridi’s Information Ethics
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Altmetrics, qualitative understanding and the Croatian seaside
The LIDA (Libraries in the Digital Age) series of conferences,initially annual and now biannual, has become something of an institution since it was established in 2000. Its location, now in the beautiful Adriatic city of Zadar, having migrated up and down the Croatian coast over the years, is certainly one factor in its popularity. Its… Continue reading Altmetrics, qualitative understanding and the Croatian seaside
The Fermi paradox and the information society
The Fermi paradox has long troubled people who wonder if there is life elsewhere in the universe. The paradox relies on two evident facts, both of which have become very much more evident since Enrico Fermi first posed the question which took his name in 1950: “where is everybody?”. The first fact is that it… Continue reading The Fermi paradox and the information society
The Sampo: the constructor in the Kalevala
While on a recent visit to the Information Studies department at Oulu University, I happened to read an interesting article by Jorma Leppänen in the Finnish Airlines magazine. This dealt with the Kalevala, the Finnish epic poem, and my eye was caught by his mention of the Sampo, of which I have to admit I… Continue reading The Sampo: the constructor in the Kalevala
The future of the library; musing on
Musing, sometimes optimistically, more often pessimistically, about the future of libraries seems to have appeal for many thinkers in and about the profession. Charles Ammi Cutter arguably started it with his late nineteenth-century vision, in some respects remarkably prescient, of a public library one hundred years ahead. From time to time, such musings take a… Continue reading The future of the library; musing on
Information about information
One of my long-standing interests, as shown by its frequent appearance on this blog, is the idea of information as a constituent of the physical world. I am, of course, particularly interested in the relations which this may have with the concept of recorded and communicable human information. A valuable new resource for discussing these… Continue reading Information about information
Applying logic, organising information
Regular readers, if such there be, of this blog will know that one the recurring themes is my interest in theories and formalisms for the information sciences, particularly those derived from other disciplines. Formal logic, stemming from philosophy is one of these, and a recent book by Martin Frické gives a new slant on the… Continue reading Applying logic, organising information
How I (nearly) fell out of love with Apple
I am not by nature what you would call an early adopter of technology. So it was only a few months ago, quite a while after Apple introduced the latest version of their operating system, that I obeyed the little light on my iPad and upgraded. And got rather a nasty shock. Nor was I… Continue reading How I (nearly) fell out of love with Apple
In praise of messy desks
One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries (AA Milne) Some of us naturally have tidy desks. Others of us, including myself, do not. And we in the latter camp have traditionally been made to feel inadequate, if not slovenly. This is, of course, grossly unfair. It has… Continue reading In praise of messy desks
On becoming historical: time and the non-classical ion
As I have written in an earlier post, my undergraduate degree was in organic chemistry. For my dissertation, I elected to do an experimental study (the only time I had a serious relationship with the practical aspects of science) in support of a rather abstruse argument within theoretical organic chemistry in which my supervisor was… Continue reading On becoming historical: time and the non-classical ion
The Occasional Informationist 